1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to serving trays, and more specifically, to a serving tray which has a plurality of plate retaining areas.
2. Description of the Related Art
Serving trays used in the food service industry are generally oval in shape and can hold a maximum of four plates. In restaurants and hotels, it is common practice amongst waiters and waitresses who are serving more than four people to stack plates of food on top of each other when using the standard oval serving tray in order to serve large tables in a single trip. The result is that the food on the bottom plates becomes mashed, or the food from the upper plates spills onto the lower plates, neither of which is a desirable consequence.
Some serving trays, either oval or circular, are provided with slightly upturn edges which are sometimes used to support plates thereon at an angle in order to fit more plates on the service tray than the designed capacity. Frequently, this results in food spilling from plate to plate, or plate to tray.
Others have made variations of the basic serving tray. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,902, issued Mar. 10, 1981 to Whitney described a container assembled for food items which has a peripheral shape of six partial circles joined together. However, the assembly is made of a flexible fabric composed of a plurality of different sheets which are interconnected to form a plurality of pockets which hold and display food.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,944,109, issued Mar. 16, 1976 to Holz described a triangularly shaped serving tray which has three partial circular peripheral areas joined together by a relatively flat area that potentially permits a serving dish to be placed in the three corners thereof. However, the tray was designed to have an insert therein which contains the three containers. The insert can form the serving tray on its own with the serving tray itself being discarded.
U.S. Pat. No. 982,351 issued Jan. 24, 1911 to Cree et al. describes a serving tray in which an upper surface is provided with a plurality of holes for receiving drinking cups.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,895,609, issued July 21, 1959 to Rajotte describes a serving tray having separate receiving areas defined by a partition plate. The serving tray is circular in shape and is provided with a chord-division between receiving areas.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,029,969, issued Apr. 17, 1962 to Buchel describes a serving tray having partitioned areas for different eating utensils.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,504,832, issued Apr. 7, 1970 to Corvetti describes a serving tray having a contoured lower surface to receive the arm of a waitress. The upper surface is circular and flat.
The aforementioned known serving trays do not solve the problem of providing a single serving tray which can accommodate a plurality of plates without spilling and without detracting from the appearance of the food on the plates.